From the Vancouver Province via U2LOG.Com:

U2 to take over GM Place for month
Dublin rockers here to rehearse before Vertigo tour starts March 28

The Province has learned that U2 — the biggest band in the world — will take over GM Place for a month of rehearsals before the first date of its Vertigo 2005 tour, March 28 in San Diego.

[...]

Tour promoter ClearChannel Entertainment and its vice-president, Shane Bourbonnais, would not confirm the Vancouver rehearsal. However, a formal announcement is expected to be made in the next few days and trucks started rolling into the lots outside the stadium yesterday.

[...]

A source close to U2 said: “This is a great city, geography-wise. It’s close to where the tour launches. And Vancouver’s a cool city.”

A cool city indeed.

Now I’m done with this theme and done for the day…more tomorrow…

I read in Lilly Tao’s blog this morning that the Oscar goodie/goody bag/basket 2005 includes

$10,000 package for a three-night stay at the Opus Hotel in Vancouver, three nights at the Four Seasons Resort in Whistler, lift passes, helicopter transfers, limo transfers, numerous meals, Pilates session, spa treatments, and two OXIA oxygen personal canisters…

(Lilly Tao also linked to the Opus Hotel press release which has more specifics, the rest of her list is a fun read too.)

Now there’s only a small problem: how I would get an Oscar goodie bag…

Now onto a brief description of what can be seen on my flickr page for our Bay Area trip…(view as a slide show!)

Earlier that week Dave Winer had proposed

Feature request for Yahoo. If I ask for driving directions from St Aug to Madison, how about an icon I can click for hotels that are about 1/2 way that have free high-speed Internet? And another I click for any Starbucks that are within ten minutes from my route? This is one of those things you know we’re going to have in two years, but of course I want it now.

Days later Dave had another good idea:

But what about pointers to places for humans to get a bit of exercise? “You’re about to pass a great state park and they have a free hiking trail for Interstate drivers. Spend one hour exercising, you’ll enjoy being cooped up in the car more.”

Hey, put that on the map too!

Sounds great to me. In fact, I had a similiar idea on our recent road trip. We have had some bad hotel experiences in the past month, and knowing where to get wifi would be great. But as we were driving up and down to California and back, I commented to Ted that it would be helpful to have a map that would locate and list restaurant and gas options. At one stop we paid $2.50 a gallon, only because we thought it was the only gas available for a while. Little did we know that there was another option at the next exit. And, as I joked in my road trip test, we ate plenty of Burger King chicken bites. The kids were happy with the stability of restaurant choice. But Ted and I would have appreciated some variety. I wanted to know where the In ‘n Out’s were or an Arby’s would have been refreshing too. And knowing where we could stop and stretch our legs, let the girls swing on a playground or have a quick picnic would be refreshing!

Wouldn’t it be great if the driving directions could include where and when to stop?! Hey, maybe they could even order ahead for us…and have those stacks of chicken bites hot and ready when we pulled in…now I’m really getting ahead of myself….and perhaps even the technology…

then again, as Dave Winer said, maybe we’ll have it in two years…or less…

The Corp of Discovery probably did eat that much meat — but the guesstimated daily amount of 8-10 lbs. is probably gross weight, including all skin, sinew, bones, antlers and hooves, less desirable organs or tissue that may not have been consumed as food. During the winter the men would have needed additional calories to keep warm; they may have been living an enforced near-Atkins-type diet, without much carbohydrate to round out their caloric needs. The guesstimated daily weight of meat consumed may also reflect unprocessed meat; surely some of it was dehydrated/smoked to preserve it, releasing a lot of water and weight. Was there any indication from the guides at Fort Clatsop to the contrary?

That’s one of the important benefits of blogging, over that of diaries like Lewis’ and Clark’s. We can collaborate more fully, use both push and pull seamlessly to get to more of the truth. If only we could have heard the real depth of exchanges between Lewis and Clark…

The guide giving the presentation did mention that the guesstimated 8 to 10 pounds a day was probably based on the gross weight of the elk instead of subtracting out skin, antlers, inedible organs, hooves, etc.

What Rayne wrote caused me to consider the calculations. During the presentation at Fort Clatsop, I think I was a bit distracted by the kids for a moment or two during the talk, and I missed the precise details.

I do remember that he used these two figures:

number of elk: 131

average weight of an elk: 750 lbs.

Here are two more I’ve researched:

days at Fort Clatsop: 102

elk-eating adults in the Corp: 32

I found a paper written by professors of meat science at the University of Wyoming and members of the Agriculture and Game and Fish Departments that provided statistics on elk and body composition. In the .pdf version, I extrapolated the following equation from Table 1:

boneless lean (meat ) = 35% of whole weight

So if I use the guide’s figures as well as the information I found on the Web, here is what I calculate:

131 elk x 750 lbs/elk x .35 pounds of lean meat/pounds of elk = 34,388 pounds of lean elk meat

divided by 102 days of camp and 32 adults =

10.5 pounds of lean elk meat/adult each day!

And these calculations assume *lean* meat…

Even when I account for the difference between edible elk and other body parts, I am still finding a number consistent with the legend of 10 pounds/day for each Corp member!

The University of Wyoming paper seems to have a lower average weight for elk, closer to 500 pounds. If the elk were smaller, that would result in 7 pounds of elk per person per day.

Elk was most of their diet. They also ate some roots (here is an on-line version of journal excerpts!) but it was, as Rayne said, an intense Atkins diet.

Elk meat is leaner than beef at approximately 500 calories/pound (31 calories an ounce). So 7 pounds/day would be 3500 calories a day. That doesn’t seem to be an excessive figure, given the amount of physical work required for daily life and the needs of the fort and the winter weather, as Rayne pointed out.

Also the journal entry about jerky also proves this intense rate of consumption. From the recipes I’ve read, the ratio of raw meat to final jerky product seems to be 3 to 1 or so. If each man ate 3 lbs of jerky a day then each man was eating 9 pounds of fresh meat. Of course, the process they were using then, which was sometimes only partially completed by the time of consumption, may have been less effective at dehydration. But even a ratio of 2 to 1 would result in each person eating 6 lbs a day of raw meat.

If I’ve made an error somewhere please let me know. This has been an interesting exercise. I could try to quip that one shouldn’t believe anything a government worker says, or that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.

But I think that this discovery that I’ve done here at the keyboard with help of a search engine and a calculator only further proves Rayne’s point

That’s one of the important benefits of blogging, over that of diaries like Lewis’ and Clark’s. We can collaborate more fully, use both push and pull seamlessly to get to more of the truth.

Thank you, Rayne (and others!) for collaborating, pushing and pulling to get to more of the truth….

The film at the Fort Clatsop Visitor Center noted that Lewis and Clark treated each other as equals even though Lewis officially held higher rank than his partner. It was also said that the two leaders respected and cared for all of the Corp.

Much has been said about what it means to be a leader. The glory and achievement. Too often it is only words. But I think that what these two men were willing to do (dangers, difficulties and fatigues), and what they did suffer and accomplish, as well as how they treated those who were under their care, speaks more than perhaps the words they wrote.

I didn’t think it would matter much where we stayed when we went to see Fort Clatsop. After all, we don’t spend that much time in our room. I wanted an economical but pleasant experience. Someplace to stash our bags and slip under the sheets. The hotel I chose appealed to me with its promise of a view.

The last time I chose a hotel for a family vacation was four years ago. The last time I had stayed in a hotel was more than two years ago, when Ted and I splurged for our tenth anniversary and stayed at the Inn at Langley (one of the benefits of a January wedding is winter rates!).

The Inn at Langley and this to-be-nameless Astoria hotel both have amazing water views. But that’s where the similiarities end. It was a bit of a shock to discover that this place had only a push-in door-knob lock for security (Ted had never seen one but I grew up with one – a West Coast phenomenon?!), and I must say that after spending the week caulking my bathroom, I had a critical eye for the facilities there.

The worse part was the carpet. When I wore black socks, I discovered white hair, like those from a dog, all over my feet. I also found a pin in the carpet and lint balls so big around the beds that I could pick them up with my fingers. At least we didn’t have a crawling baby, but the kids still spend a lot of time on the floor at these ages. Abigail broke out with a rash the day after we arrived and I wonder if it was due to the lack of cleanliness.

When I complained to the front desk, we were only charged for one night instead of two. I appreciated the discounted price and the attempt to respond to our complaint. But as I thought about it, I realized that I would have rather paid the full price and enjoyed the experience then to receive a discounted bill and leave with a bad taste in our mouth, and dog hairs on our clothes and luggage…

If anyone is interested in staying in Astoria, send me a comment or email and I’ll let you know the name of this place. I’d also appreciate any recommendations…perhaps I should have asked this a few months ago!

I would have liked to have stayed downtown closer to the heart of Astoria, within walking distance of the bus stop, trolley car or restaurants. But the city seems sprawling, and I’m not sure if there are any hotels that fit those parameters. Ted and I did see one place offering Internet access.

Before our trip, I wasn’t sure how much it would matter where we stayed. In retrospect, I’m not sure it mattered that much. But it would have been nice to have had a nice stay.